What is real? What is imagined? We really never know. ItвЂ™s a cunning maneuver, especially considering the story deals with a man obviously losing his marbles. Maybe Potrykus makes it so obvious that we know this bag exists so we will second-guess our own notions of reality. This tiniest of details ripped me from the film and it might have been intentional. But what happens five minutes later? The characters talk about this bagвЂ™s contents, make a half-hearted effort to find it, and agree it never made the trip. WeвЂ™re forced to look at this bag: itвЂ™s color drawing our eyes in as its transition from car to SeanвЂ™s hand serves as the first real motion of the scene. We linger at the start upon a yellow bag of eggs, statically at the frameвЂ™s center until Cortez wakes Sean from his trance with a yell. The camera takes us outside the trailer to CortezвЂ™s car as they procure the groceries he so generously transported into the middle of nowhere. My breaking point occurred twenty minutes in when a newcomer named Cortez ( Amari Cheatom) interrupts the supposed one-man show. I unfortunately was never able to fully buy into it. The beauty of this quote is that itвЂ™s pretty much exactly what I thought of PotrykusвЂ™ film, a project wearing its micro-budget on its sleeve with oftentimes funnily-read dramatics on behalf of a character so lost inside his own mind as to be certifiably insane. The FBI went on record calling it вЂњone of the crudest, low-brow, paranoiac writing efforts ever attemptedвЂќ within a memo dated sometime between 19. It contained step-by-step instructions for explosive manufacturing, manipulating telecommunication systems, and literally вЂњcookingвЂќ up drugs such as LSD. The filmвЂ™s title card mimics the cover of William PowellвЂ™s The Anarchist Cookbook, a publication brought to fruition as a way of protesting the United StatesвЂ™ involvement in Vietnam. Paranoia, anger, and fear arrive quickly the only transmutation occurring is his. What his journey reveals is the slippery slope of sanity caused by isolation from humanity. Why Sean plays with forces that push him beyond the boundaries of chemistry is ultimately beside the point. It might be for an elixir of immortality, his ritualistic incantations recalling satanic verse in search of dealing with a demonic presence that only pentagrams and dead animals hope to conjure. He doesnвЂ™t seem to care about money while living as a hermit inside a hidden trailer deep within the woods-bill collectors вЂњno longer owning himвЂќ-so gold is out of the question. I have no clue why Sean ( Ty Hickson) messes with the titular book in Joel PotrykusвЂ The Alchemist Cookbook.

The alchemist cookbook quote